to my mind the president who bucks that trend and doesn't get credit for it is ronald reagan. we tend to think of reagan and iran-contra as the second term. it's also true that he didn't go to geneva this until 1985 and the man who managed to push the cold war toward it then did so largely in that second term. >> rose: bill clinton also i guess you could say got welfare reform in the second term, did he not? >> actually, it was before the election in 1996 and he created his own problems as we know and that's one of the grat tragedies of modern american history is this enormous man, the best politician since lyndon johnson to hold the office who ran into the impeachment issue and ended up squandering at least a year and a half, two years. so -- and i think the other -- the most recent example i think by pretty common consent, president bush did better after what he called his thumping in 2006 when he finally fired donald rumsfeld, brought in bob gates and began to move to slightly more of a center position before the economy collapsed. >> rose: so what's the challenge for presi